The present invention relates to a system and method for tracking products and services usage; and more particularly to a system and method of storing information about vendor contracts, user entitlements to the vendor products and services and requests for a product or services, as well as tracking changes in a database. The system and method allows for comparing costs charged for the requests and actual usage against vendor invoices. The system and method can handle different vendor billing methods such as flat fees, a fee per request, monthly tiered fees and various methods of applying a discount. The system and method can also track changes in user entitlements to different vendor products and services.
A preferred embodiment shows the invention being applied to the financial services industry. Financial institutions such as major banks, brokerage houses, insurance companies and the like rely on information provided by specialized financial and market data service providers. Many financial institutions may subscribe to well over 100 different national and international news and price feed information services. A typical large bank may spend an average of $12 M annually on such services.
Within the large financial institutions, individual users, such as analysts, traders and the like will be entitled to have access to particular market data products and services, generally determined by their department or division, as is appropriate for that user. Typically, a centralized management department, typically a help desk function, within the company will assign the access rights for a particular user to a particular product or service. A user""s unique set of available market data services, or entitlements needs to be managed and tracked. These entitlements, for example, can change or remain with a user if that user changes departments, or moves its physical desk.
Typically, physical moves within a company or between departments are frequent, especially at banks or other financial institutions and there is a higher-than-average turnover ratio in the financial services industry. For example, in many banks, two-year training programs for analysts start every summer and service entitlements must frequently be added or deleted for the new users to keep up with current staffing.
Management of the resources involved in accessing on-line information from vendors can raise additional complications. Certain services may require specialized hardware or licensed software to be used in accessing the information. Additionally, certain dedicated modems or phone lines may have to be provided. When a physical move of a user is planned, decisions on whether to move the hardware and other infrastructure needs to be made. If a new user occupying the seat will require the same resources as were there, then only the changes in the user name are needed. Often, however, physical equipment or software will have to be moved.
The many market data and information services vendors typically invoice for their services on a monthly basis and charge rates that are related to the number of users within the financial service client. Often the rate structures can be a flat monthly fee for a user. Alternatively, a flat fee for the company may be charged (in which case the present system is useful for providing an automated method of posting charge-backs to the department or user), or a fee per request or for line usage time may be used. Finally, tiered pricing schedules and volume or other discounts need to be tracked.
In many of the large financial institutions, a typical vendor""s printed invoice may be an inch thick and contain thousands of line items. Since services and entitlements may be charged based on a monthly fee, for example, often when additions or deletions of users are made to an account, such changes appear on the following month invoice as a series of debits and credits. For example, if a bank deletes an entitlement in the middle of March for one user, the monthly invoice for that service will typically include a charge for one month""s usage by the user. The remaining days in March not actually used are then credited on the April invoice.
Because of the extensive amount of data required in tracking individual user entitlements and reviewing the hundreds of monthly invoices, typically a financial service company can only conduct a summary review of the invoices. In general, if an invoice remained fairly constant on a month-to-month basis, it is generally paid without any further detailed reconcilement. For an invoice that is more than marginally different from the month-to-month average, a firm can spend up to three to four weeks per month reconciling and charging back these invoices.
In addition to invoice reconcilement and billing, there is a need within the financial institutions for managing the related functions of procurement and contract management for the market data services; hardware and software inventory control, and help desk support; managing moves and changes among users and among user entitlements; and managing internal departmental charge backs where the fees for the market data services are apportioned to the appropriate department or user. In the current state of affairs for typical financial institutions, disparate manual and automated systems are used for one or another of these various functions and often cause duplicate processing and data entry throughout the various responsible areas within the financial institution.
What is desired is a system and method that can track vendors and contract related data, including costs for every type of service provided by the vendors. The system should maintain complete information on market data service contracts, with on-line update of service terms and usage. The system preferably tracks vendors, contracts, products, services, various vendor pricing methodologies, delivery and third-party billing information.
It is also desirable for the system to process and reconcile invoices from the vendors. For example, the system should reconcile vendor invoices against individual usage data. It would be most desirable for the system to receive electronic invoices for direct import into the system from the market information service vendors. The system then automatically calculates costs based on an inventory of actual requests for information, and calculates unit costs for services based on the various vendor pricing methodologies. The system should automate the reconciliation of charges against usage data and provide appropriate charge back reports.
It is desired to provide an internal charge back processing function which can allocate monthly market data costs back to the financial service institution user or department. Unit costs for all services are calculated at various levels and pricing methodologies and include an appropriate allocation for direct usage charges, shared account level charges and company site license type allocations. In the past, this function has been a manually intensive, imprecise and incomplete process.
The system desirably contains a real-time inventory of locations, hardware, software and entitlements for users or employees. Historical usage information should also be maintained by the system to verify new charges and credits with the vendors.
The system should manage help desk functions, such as moving a user or changing a user""s entitlements. Preferably, the system can create xe2x80x9cticketsxe2x80x9d for repairs and work orders covering equipment, market data services, and general hardware or software help. The system should desirably also track calls to a help desk and record completion of help desk requests.
The system should also have the capability of planning and implementing both small and large-scale moves of multiple employees or users, entitlements and equipment from one seat to another. Employees, entitlement and equipment should be able to be moved independently from one another. Once a particular move is planned, the system generates and tracks the individual xe2x80x9cticketsxe2x80x9d or work orders which are needed to perform the move. Work orders are then routed automatically to the appropriate department, vendors and contractors who will be performing the individual tasks.
The system and method of the present invention satisfies all of the above needs and advantageously provides a complete integrated solution to meet the disparate requirements of the various departments that manage, use and implement market information and data services. It eliminates duplicate efforts and the intensive manual processing of invoices, move processing and work order tracking. The system and method is able to monitor and prevent duplicate services from being received at certain seats where multiple vendors are providing the same data to the user. The system and method is able to reconcile and uncover discrepancies between line item totals and invoice amounts relative to the entitlements of individual users. The system and method of the present invention can enable a financial institution to perform a complete line-by-line audit of every vendor invoice which will allow reconciliation of every line item and every mid-month credit and charge.
The present invention relates generally to a system and method for reconciling vendor invoices for products and services with actual usage by individual users within a company. More particularly, the present invention is a computerized system and method for receiving invoices from vendors and tracking the amounts in the invoices against a database containing information about the vendor service contracts, user entitlements to that service, and actual usage of the service. The system also includes functions for automated tracking and inputting or changing user information, vendor service contract changes, and help desk requests related to the hardware or software used to acquire the data from the vendor products and services.
The system of the invention processes accounts payable in the back office of, for example, the trading floor of a bank or other financial institution. In a particular embodiment of the invention, various traders or other users order on-line market information services, magazines and other information for the purposes of carrying out their job and analyzing the market. Determinations are made whether those products and services are authorized to be purchased, and then they are entered into the system, processed and paid. The system receives invoices from vendors in electronic form, and facilitates reconciling and processing so that the accounts payable department can pay the invoices.
The system of the invention is a fully integrated expense control system and is capable of doing a profit and loss analysis based on the vendor products and services charged for, and the revenue generated by the users requiring those services. The system tracks inventory, reconciles invoices and is capable of educating the business people by generating various reports.
The system and method of the invention is capable of providing a return on investment analysis as well. For example, many of the services from market information providers include a one-month free trial. The system would enable the manager running the department interested in the trial to determine if adding the trial service as an entitlement to the department users would enhance the performance of those receiving that particular service, and thus the manager can evaluate whether the service should be purchased beyond the trial month. Additionally, if different vendors provide similar services, an analysis can be made of which one costs less. The system provides profit and loss accountability allowing business managers the opportunity to determine the actual value of vendor products and services.
In accordance with the invention, a system for managing product and service usage from vendors is provided. The system includes a database having contract information for vendors, entitlement information for users and requests for a product or service from a vendor made by a user. The requests for products and services from a vendor are generated by the user of the system. The requests are compared with the entitlement information for the requesting user and the contract information for the vendor that supplies the product or service to determine if the request is approved. If the request is approved, the system generates an associated billing item in the database for the request. The approved request is transmittable to the vendor. The system receives, from the vendor, an invoice of charges associated with the approved requests, and compares the invoice with the associated billing items for the approved requests.
Additionally, in accordance with the invention, a system for managing user requests for products and services from vendors is provided. The system includes a database for storing contract information for vendors, entitlement information for users and requests for products and services from a vendor. The system includes input/output means operable by a user for generating a request for products and services from a vendor and transmitting the request to the database. The request for products or services is compared to the entitlement information for the requesting user and the contract information for the vendor to determine if the request is approved. The system generates a billing item associated with approved requests and transmits the billing item to the database. The approved request is transmittable to the vendor. The system receives from the vendor an invoice of charges associated with the approved request and compares the invoice with the associated billing item for the approved request.
In accordance with the invention, a method for managing requests for products and services from vendors is provided. The method includes providing a database which stores contract information for vendors, entitlement information for users and requests for a product or service from a vendor. The method includes generating, by a user, a request for a product or service from a vendor, and comparing the request with the entitlement information for the user and the contract information for the vendor to determine if the request is approved. Approved requests are transmittable to the vendor. The method includes generating an associated billing item in the database for approved requests. The method includes receiving from the vendor an invoice of charges associated with approved requests, and comparing the invoice with the associated billing item for the approved request.
Additionally, in accordance with the invention, a method for managing user requests for products and services from vendors is provided. The method includes providing a database for storing contract information for vendors, entitlement information for users and requests for a product or service from a vendor. The method also includes generating, by a user, a request for a product or service from a vendor and transmitting the request to the database. The method compares the request for a product or service to entitlement information for the user and contract information for the vendor, and generates an approved request. The system generates a billing item associated with approved requests and transmits the billing item to the database. The approved request is transmittable to the vendor. The method includes receiving from the vendor an invoice of charges associated with the approved request and comparing the invoice with the associated billing item for the approved request.
An object of the invention is to provide on-line product and service request management between end users and vendors.
It is a further object to provide automation of invoice reconciliation for quantity and dollar amount of products and services used, against a database containing costs and other information for the products and services.
Still another object of the invention is to provide automation of the invoice approval processes by accounts payable.
Yet another object of the invention is to provide end user charge notification by an on-line network system.
Still another object of the invention is to provide automated accrual and financial management tools.
Still other objects and advantages of the invention will, in part, be obvious and will, in part, be apparent from the specification.
The invention, accordingly, comprises the several steps and the relation of one or more of such steps with respect to each of the others, and the system embodying features of construction, combinations of elements and arrangement of parts which are adapted to affect such steps, all as exemplified in the following detailed disclosure, and the scope of the invention will be indicated in the claims.